# Is Ted Cruz even eligible to be President? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [March 30, 2016, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ted-cruz-even-eligible-to-be-president/750647 "2016-03-30T16:39:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![boffking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/858c86/32.png) [@boffking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boffking)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2016, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ted-cruz-even-eligible-to-be-president/750647/1 "2016-03-30T16:39:36Z")
There is no question about the fact that he was born in Canada. Our constitution states that you must be a “natural-born citizen” in order to be president. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2016, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ted-cruz-even-eligible-to-be-president/750647/2 "2016-03-30T16:41:42Z")
And his mother was a U.S. citizen. Done. ETA: And I would _love_ to see Cruz DQed. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2016, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ted-cruz-even-eligible-to-be-president/750647/3 "2016-03-30T16:53:21Z")
I thought it was simple, too. But I recall on Lawrence O’Donnell’s show, he had a law professor (I think from Harvard) who looked into it. Like most of us, he originally thought the question was silly and of course Cruz was eligible. It turns out he isn’t so sure, due I believe to the fact that his mother voted in Canada. Does one renounce her citizenship by such an act? I don’t know, and I think if (God forbid) he ever won an election, the Supreme Court (of as many members who don’t die while Republicans control the Senate) would have to decide. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2016, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ted-cruz-even-eligible-to-be-president/750647/4 "2016-03-30T17:00:57Z")
> [@boffking](#): > > Our constitution states that you must be a “natural-born citizen” in order to be president. What do you think “natural-born citizen” means? Probably a moot questions, since the OP rarely comes back to threads he or she starts. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2016, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ted-cruz-even-eligible-to-be-president/750647/5 "2016-03-30T17:16:13Z")
It has never been definitively decide by the courts, but I thought the consensus these days was that “Citizen at birth” = “Natural-born citizen”, regardless of where you were actually born. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2016, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ted-cruz-even-eligible-to-be-president/750647/6 "2016-03-30T17:28:31Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > And his mother was a U.S. citizen. > Done. > ETA: And I would _love_ to see Cruz DQed. So Trump has a better chance? Natural-born citizen isn’t defined in the Constitution. But under the simple meanings of the words, it would seem to mean a person who is a citizen automatically at birth. It’s absurd to think otherwise, and the fact that Donald Trump has supported other interpretations makes those other interpretations even less credible to my ears. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2016, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ted-cruz-even-eligible-to-be-president/750647/7 "2016-03-30T17:34:07Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > It turns out he isn’t so sure, due I believe to the fact that his mother voted in Canada. He must have seen better evidence than I have that Cruz’ mother became a Canadian citizen; i.e., any. All I’ve read on the subject is speculation and wild-assed guesses. And, no, even if she did become a Canadian citizen, that does not automatically mean a renunciation of her U.S. citizenship. If so, she would have had to return to the U.S. as an alien. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Lowry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@Sam\_Lowry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Lowry)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2016, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ted-cruz-even-eligible-to-be-president/750647/8 "2016-03-30T17:34:48Z")
Wasn’t Trump threatening to sue Cruz about his eligibility to be President? I would have thought he’d have done so. It’s not like Trump is averse to lawsuits. I would think that if a lawsuit was brought that Cruz would be ruled eligible, but that a lawsuit could still cause him trouble in the meantime, both with the hassle of it, and with voters who might consider voting for Cruz but wouldn’t want to vote for a “non-American”. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2016, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ted-cruz-even-eligible-to-be-president/750647/9 "2016-03-30T17:36:40Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > So Trump has a better chance? > > Natural-born citizen isn’t defined in the Constitution. But under the simple meanings of the words, it would seem to mean a person who is a citizen automatically at birth. It’s absurd to think otherwise, and the fact that Donald Trump has supported other interpretations makes those other interpretations even less credible to my ears. Cruz is a Constitutional Originalist. And according to that, he wouldn’t be qualified to run for President because he was born outside the U.S. and only one parent was a citizen. [Cruz’s Constitutional Law professor.](https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/01/11/through-ted-cruz-constitutional-looking-glass/zvKE6qpF31q2RsvPO9nGoK/story.html) > [@](#): > > People are entitled to their own opinions about what the definition ought to be. But the kind of judge Cruz says he admires and would appoint to the Supreme Court is an “originalist,” one who claims to be bound by the narrowly historical meaning of the Constitution’s terms at the time of their adoption. To his kind of judge, Cruz ironically wouldn’t be eligible, because the legal principles that prevailed in the 1780s and ’90s \*\*required that someone actually be born on US soil to be a “natural born” citizen. Even having two US parents wouldn’t suffice. \*\*And having just an American mother, as Cruz did, would have been insufficient at a time that made patrilineal descent decisive. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2016, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ted-cruz-even-eligible-to-be-president/750647/10 "2016-03-30T17:49:19Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > Cruz is a Constitutional Originalist. And according to that, he wouldn’t be qualified to run for President because he was born outside the U.S. and only one parent was a citizen. > > [Cruz’s Constitutional Law professor.](https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/01/11/through-ted-cruz-constitutional-looking-glass/zvKE6qpF31q2RsvPO9nGoK/story.html) I’m not bothering with that link, not because I deny that Ted Cruz is a hypocrite but because I don’t care that he is. I oppose his candidacy for other reasons, and I think the originalist argument is bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2016, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ted-cruz-even-eligible-to-be-president/750647/11 "2016-03-30T18:00:12Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > I’m not bothering with that link, not because I deny that Ted Cruz is a hypocrite but because I don’t care that he is.\*\* I oppose his candidacy for other reasons,\*\* and I think the originalist argument is bullshit. So do I. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2016, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ted-cruz-even-eligible-to-be-president/750647/12 "2016-03-30T18:05:56Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > Cruz is a Constitutional Originalist. And according to that, he wouldn’t be qualified to run for President because he was born outside the U.S. and only one parent was a citizen. > > [Cruz’s Constitutional Law professor.](https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/01/11/through-ted-cruz-constitutional-looking-glass/zvKE6qpF31q2RsvPO9nGoK/story.html) Tribe makes an assertion without citing a singe bit of evidence to support it. It MAY be true. He MAY believe it. Or he MAY simply choose to say that based on his not particularly liking an old student. Until some evidence has been cited to support the claim, Tribe’s and Trump’s claim is mere speculation. No one seriously raised these issues with George Romney (born in Mexico) or John McCain (born in the Canal Zone). If this was a serious complaint, the subject would have been raised long ago. It was only that various idiots needed a way to attack Obama, (with Trump jumping on the bandwagon), that even gave this sort of argument a public hearing and now Trump is threatening his closest rival with the same nonsense. \*meh \* ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2016, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ted-cruz-even-eligible-to-be-president/750647/13 "2016-03-30T18:11:13Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > What do you think “natural-born citizen” means? _I_ think it means “endless spins in the right-o-sphere media cycle as the talking heads try to convince their audiences that all this smoke they’re blowing up their asses means something big is on fire”. This isn’t going any farther than that. It wouldn’t have even gone that far had Trump not run with it, given that Cruz is a sour-cream-American and Obama is Presidenting While Black. I dunno. Sometimes, I wish my party were _good_ at the occasional ratfuck. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2016, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ted-cruz-even-eligible-to-be-president/750647/14 "2016-03-30T18:17:42Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > He must have seen better evidence than I have that Cruz’ mother became a Canadian citizen; i.e., any. All I’ve read on the subject is speculation and wild-assed guesses. > > And, no, even if she did become a Canadian citizen, that does not automatically mean a renunciation of her U.S. citizenship. If so, she would have had to return to the U.S. as an alien. When did she do this? If she did it after he was born, it’s irrelevant. I could go become a Saudi, and my son is still eligible to run for president. Now, if she renounced her citizenship, but then reaffirmed it (like Lee Harvey Oswald did with his US citizenship), I think he’d still be eligible. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2016, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ted-cruz-even-eligible-to-be-president/750647/15 "2016-03-30T18:28:34Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Tribe makes an assertion without citing a singe bit of evidence to support it. It MAY be true. He MAY believe it. Or he MAY simply choose to say that based on his not particularly liking an old student. > > Until some evidence has been cited to support the claim, Tribe’s and Trump’s claim is mere speculation. > No one seriously raised these issues with George Romney (born in Mexico) or John McCain (born in the Canal Zone). If this was a serious complaint, the subject would have been raised long ago. It was only that various idiots needed a way to attack Obama, (with Trump jumping on the bandwagon), that even gave this sort of argument a public hearing and now Trump is threatening his closest rival with the same nonsense. > \*meh > \* Actually, Tribe linked to a very detailed 2005 law review article on it. It’s a far better cite than the vast majority of articles and dope posts. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2016, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ted-cruz-even-eligible-to-be-president/750647/16 "2016-03-30T19:15:24Z")
Has anything changed since [we did this a few months ago?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=770707) ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2016, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ted-cruz-even-eligible-to-be-president/750647/17 "2016-03-30T19:20:46Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > … (like Lee Harvey Oswald did with his US citizenship), … [nitpick] Oswald never renounced his citizenship. He explored the possibility of beginning the process, but did not follow through. [/nitpick] ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2016, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ted-cruz-even-eligible-to-be-president/750647/18 "2016-03-30T19:26:20Z")
It’s the birther boom all over again, and nothing will come of it. Doesn’t matter, though, a lot of Trump’s supporters are gullible enough to buy it anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Some\_Call\_Me.Tim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Some\_Call\_Me.Tim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Some_Call_Me.Tim)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2016, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ted-cruz-even-eligible-to-be-president/750647/19 "2016-03-30T19:32:39Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Tribe makes an assertion without citing a singe bit of evidence to support it. It MAY be true. He MAY believe it. Or he MAY simply choose to say that based on his not particularly liking an old student. > > Until some evidence has been cited to support the claim, Tribe’s and Trump’s claim is mere speculation. > No one seriously raised these issues with George Romney (born in Mexico) or John McCain (born in the Canal Zone). If this was a serious complaint, the subject would have been raised long ago. It was only that various idiots needed a way to attack Obama, (with Trump jumping on the bandwagon), that even gave this sort of argument a public hearing and now Trump is threatening his closest rival with the same nonsense. > \*meh > \* Well, I don’t know if you call it serious or not, but these issues were certainly raised with Barack Obama, who actually was born on US soil… the more common birther claim as I understand it was that he was born in Kenya (to his actual US Citizen mother). There may have been sub-conspiracy theories, but I don’t recall a lot of questioning of the identity of his mother, just of his birthplace. Needing to be born on US soil was sort of baked into that birther conspiracy theory as a necessary ingredient. Oh, and there were claims that the Panama Canal zone somehow counted as US soil for McCain, I forget the details now. I think the dots lead pretty clearly from the Obama-born-in-Kenya conspiracy theory to the Cruz allegedly invalid theory, and they’re being pushed by the same crowd. ---
**Author:** ![jsquire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ce73a5/32.png) [@jsquire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsquire)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2016, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ted-cruz-even-eligible-to-be-president/750647/20 "2016-03-30T19:57:14Z")
If O’Henry wrote the story, Cruz would win the presidency and nominate the person to fill the currently open SCOTUS seat…who would then author a 5-4 decision that Cruz is not eligible for the presidency. According to family lore (which is not always accurate), my great-grandmother was both a natural-born and naturalized citizen. While born in the US and the child of American citizens, she married a Canadian and at the time a woman who married a foreign man lost her citizenship (not so when genders were reversed). She did not know this until she attempted to register for voting shortly after the 19th Amendment was passed, and discovered that she had to go through the naturalization process. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ted-cruz-even-eligible-to-be-president/750647.md?page=2)